Lambros Comitas
Encyclopedia
Lambros Comitas is Gardner Cowles Professor of Anthropology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University
. A product of Columbia University
, he received the A.B. from Columbia College in 1948 after service in the United States Army
, and was awarded the Ph.D. in anthropology
in 1962 from the Columbia Faculty of Political Science. Influential figures in his early professional years were Conrad Arensberg, Marvin Harris
, Charles Wagley
and Margaret Mead
from the Columbia faculty and M. G. Smith
, the eminent British trained anthropologist whom he first met during field work in Jamaica
.
His teaching career in anthropology began in 1958 at Columbia University. Six years later he joined the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences at Teachers College, an affiliate of Columbia University, as Associate Professor. Marvin Harris, then chair at Columbia proper, used to say that Comitas was sent over as a missionary
. In any case, in his new position, he helped create doctoral programs in Applied Anthropology and Anthropology and Education, the former in close association with the university department. A full professor by 1967, Comitas directed the Division of Philosophy, the Social Sciences, and Education (1979–1996) and the Institute for International Studies (1984- ) at Teachers College. He was Director of the Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies from 1977 to 1984 at Columbia proper. He was awarded the Gardner Cowles Chair in Anthropology and Education in 1988.
In tandem with university responsibilities, he was connected to the Research Institute for the Study of Man, for years a leading Caribbean
-focused foundation, first as associate director (1959–1985) and then as director (1985–2001), a connection that led him professionally back to the West Indies and forward to Bolivia
and the Soviet Union
. During the formative years of the Peace Corps
(1961–1962), he helped train two of the earliest units in the field (St. Lucia I and Jamaica I), evaluated country teams in Bolivia, St. Lucia, Barbados
and Jamaica and negotiated and programmed in British Guiana
, Trinidad and Tobago
, Dominica
and Barbados. He co-directed the first Peace Corps research project, a complex study of considerable importance that led to the book Changing Rural Society: A Study of Communities in Bolivia and other publications.
As an anthropologist, Comitas is known primarily as a Caribbeanist
who has carried out field studies in both the Hispanic and non-Hispanic Caribbean. However, he has also worked in Bolivia, Greece
, the former Soviet Republic of Georgia
, the Canary Islands
and Andorra
. A leading figure in problem-related fieldwork, he contributed to the understanding of maritime communities in the Antilles
; community structure
and rural education in Bolivia; education and change in the Creole
Caribbean; and,is well known for developing the concept of occupational multiplicity. Contributing to burgeoning Caribbean research in the latter half of the 20th Century, he completed two projects designed to compile a complete bibliography of the scholarly and scientific literature of the non-Hispanic Caribbean from 1900 to 1975. In addition, from 1967 to 2005, he reviewed and annotated some two thousand anthropological publications for his biennial West Indian section in the Handbook of Latin American Studies, an authoritative bibliographic source issued by the Library of Congress
. In more recent years, Comitas has developed a long-held interest in the research utility of visual anthropology
focusing on a photo and video database which he accumulated over the years.
A specialist on the sociocultural aspects of drug usage
, Comitas is intimately linked to several innovative studies of drugs and society (1972–1981) in the Caribbean and in Greece, supported by the National Institute of Mental Health
and National Institute on Drug Abuse
. His work on drugs is best highlighted by the acclaimed and controversial sociomedical study Ganja in Jamaica (1975), a multidisciplinary work that explores the chronic use of cannabis
in socio-medical perspective finding few or no negative medical consequences due to heavy marihuana use. A number of books, dissertations and articles, by project staff and former students, based on evidence drawn from the Jamaica and Greek studies generally support the benign results of the original studies.
A firm believer in the necessity for thoroughly preparing fledgling anthropologists, Comitas has taught in a graduate department for well over fifty years. A ferocious advocate of field training, he served as executive secretary of the unique Columbia-Cornell-Harvard-Illinois Summer Field Study Program; directed seven summer-long graduate student training sessions to Barbados, Bolivia, Dominican Republic
, Jamaica and Andorra; and he initiated the Ruth Landes Memorial Fund that, during his tenure as director, provided grants to universities for developing systematic field training at these places. He considers that his effort to form several generations of anthropologists in the United States, is perhaps his most satisfying professional accomplishment. In this context, he has sponsored well over a hundred of his students to receive the doctorate in anthropology.
The recipient of many awards including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from Fulbright
, Spencer Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, NATO, U.S. Office of Education, Government of Andorra and Government of the Canary Islands, Comitas is a fellow of the American Anthropological Association
, The New York Academy of Sciences
and was elected President of the Society for Applied Anthropology
in 1970 as well as a member of the National Academy of Education in 1979.
Teachers College, Columbia University
Teachers College, Columbia University is a graduate school of education located in New York City, New York...
. A product of Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, he received the A.B. from Columbia College in 1948 after service in the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
, and was awarded the Ph.D. in anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
in 1962 from the Columbia Faculty of Political Science. Influential figures in his early professional years were Conrad Arensberg, Marvin Harris
Marvin Harris
Marvin Harris was an American anthropologist. He was born in Brooklyn, New York. A prolific writer, he was highly influential in the development of cultural materialism...
, Charles Wagley
Charles Wagley
Charles Wagley was an American anthropologist and leading pioneer in the development of Brazilian anthropology. Wagley began graduate work in the 1930s at Columbia University, where he fell under the spell of Franz Boas and what later became known as the "historical particularist” mode of...
and Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s....
from the Columbia faculty and M. G. Smith
M. G. Smith
Michael Garfield Smith OM was a Jamaican poet and social anthropologist. Smith was the son of a descendant of English army officers and merchants, and his mother a 'coloured' nurse who died in childbirth. Smith served as Franklin M. Crosby Professor Emeritus of the Human Environment at Yale...
, the eminent British trained anthropologist whom he first met during field work in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
.
His teaching career in anthropology began in 1958 at Columbia University. Six years later he joined the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences at Teachers College, an affiliate of Columbia University, as Associate Professor. Marvin Harris, then chair at Columbia proper, used to say that Comitas was sent over as a missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
. In any case, in his new position, he helped create doctoral programs in Applied Anthropology and Anthropology and Education, the former in close association with the university department. A full professor by 1967, Comitas directed the Division of Philosophy, the Social Sciences, and Education (1979–1996) and the Institute for International Studies (1984- ) at Teachers College. He was Director of the Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies from 1977 to 1984 at Columbia proper. He was awarded the Gardner Cowles Chair in Anthropology and Education in 1988.
In tandem with university responsibilities, he was connected to the Research Institute for the Study of Man, for years a leading Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
-focused foundation, first as associate director (1959–1985) and then as director (1985–2001), a connection that led him professionally back to the West Indies and forward to Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. During the formative years of the Peace Corps
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...
(1961–1962), he helped train two of the earliest units in the field (St. Lucia I and Jamaica I), evaluated country teams in Bolivia, St. Lucia, Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
and Jamaica and negotiated and programmed in British Guiana
British Guiana
British Guiana was the name of the British colony on the northern coast of South America, now the independent nation of Guyana.The area was originally settled by the Dutch at the start of the 17th century as the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice...
, Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...
, Dominica
Dominica
Dominica , officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island nation in the Lesser Antilles region of the Caribbean Sea, south-southeast of Guadeloupe and northwest of Martinique. Its size is and the highest point in the country is Morne Diablotins, which has an elevation of . The Commonwealth...
and Barbados. He co-directed the first Peace Corps research project, a complex study of considerable importance that led to the book Changing Rural Society: A Study of Communities in Bolivia and other publications.
As an anthropologist, Comitas is known primarily as a Caribbeanist
Caribbeanist
A Caribbeanist is a scholar who specializes in the study of the Caribbean region of the Americas -- its literature, culture, politics, society, ecology and so forth. In some academic disciplines Caribbean studies are seen as a branch of the larger field of Latin American studies....
who has carried out field studies in both the Hispanic and non-Hispanic Caribbean. However, he has also worked in Bolivia, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, the former Soviet Republic of Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
and Andorra
Andorra
Andorra , officially the Principality of Andorra , also called the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra, , is a small landlocked country in southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France. It is the sixth smallest nation in Europe having an area of...
. A leading figure in problem-related fieldwork, he contributed to the understanding of maritime communities in the Antilles
Antilles
The Antilles islands form the greater part of the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea. The Antilles are divided into two major groups: the "Greater Antilles" to the north and west, including the larger islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola , and Puerto Rico; and the smaller "Lesser Antilles" on the...
; community structure
Community structure
In the study of complex networks, a network is said to have community structure if the nodes of the network can be easily grouped into sets of nodes such that each set of nodes is densely connected internally...
and rural education in Bolivia; education and change in the Creole
Creole
- Languages :A Creole language is a stable, full-fledged language that originated from a pidgin or combination of other languages.Creole languages subgroups may include:* Arabic-based creole languages* Dutch-based creole languages...
Caribbean; and,is well known for developing the concept of occupational multiplicity. Contributing to burgeoning Caribbean research in the latter half of the 20th Century, he completed two projects designed to compile a complete bibliography of the scholarly and scientific literature of the non-Hispanic Caribbean from 1900 to 1975. In addition, from 1967 to 2005, he reviewed and annotated some two thousand anthropological publications for his biennial West Indian section in the Handbook of Latin American Studies, an authoritative bibliographic source issued by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
. In more recent years, Comitas has developed a long-held interest in the research utility of visual anthropology
Visual anthropology
Visual anthropology is a subfield of cultural anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media...
focusing on a photo and video database which he accumulated over the years.
A specialist on the sociocultural aspects of drug usage
Drug usage
Drug usage is an umbrella term that may be used to refer to:* Substance abuse* Responsible drug use* Recreational drug use* Medical cannabis...
, Comitas is intimately linked to several innovative studies of drugs and society (1972–1981) in the Caribbean and in Greece, supported by the National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health...
and National Institute on Drug Abuse
National Institute on Drug Abuse
The National Institute on Drug Abuse is a United States federal-government research institute whose mission is to "lead the Nation in bringing the power of science to bear on drug abuse and addiction."-History:...
. His work on drugs is best highlighted by the acclaimed and controversial sociomedical study Ganja in Jamaica (1975), a multidisciplinary work that explores the chronic use of cannabis
Cannabis
Cannabis is a genus of flowering plants that includes three putative species, Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. These three taxa are indigenous to Central Asia, and South Asia. Cannabis has long been used for fibre , for seed and seed oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a...
in socio-medical perspective finding few or no negative medical consequences due to heavy marihuana use. A number of books, dissertations and articles, by project staff and former students, based on evidence drawn from the Jamaica and Greek studies generally support the benign results of the original studies.
A firm believer in the necessity for thoroughly preparing fledgling anthropologists, Comitas has taught in a graduate department for well over fifty years. A ferocious advocate of field training, he served as executive secretary of the unique Columbia-Cornell-Harvard-Illinois Summer Field Study Program; directed seven summer-long graduate student training sessions to Barbados, Bolivia, Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
, Jamaica and Andorra; and he initiated the Ruth Landes Memorial Fund that, during his tenure as director, provided grants to universities for developing systematic field training at these places. He considers that his effort to form several generations of anthropologists in the United States, is perhaps his most satisfying professional accomplishment. In this context, he has sponsored well over a hundred of his students to receive the doctorate in anthropology.
The recipient of many awards including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from Fulbright
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, is a program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists, founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Under the...
, Spencer Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, NATO, U.S. Office of Education, Government of Andorra and Government of the Canary Islands, Comitas is a fellow of the American Anthropological Association
American Anthropological Association
The American Anthropological Association is a professional organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 11,000 members, the Arlington, Virginia based association includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, biological anthropologists, linguistic...
, The New York Academy of Sciences
New York Academy of Sciences
The New York Academy of Sciences is the third oldest scientific society in the United States. An independent, non-profit organization with more than members in 140 countries, the Academy’s mission is to advance understanding of science and technology...
and was elected President of the Society for Applied Anthropology
Society for Applied Anthropology
The Society for Applied Anthropology is a U.S.-based professional association for applied anthropology, established "to promote the integration of anthropological perspectives and methods in solving human problems throughout the world; to advocate for fair and just public policy based upon sound...
in 1970 as well as a member of the National Academy of Education in 1979.